Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Leviticus 26
So far from Lev.26:14-22 and Deut.28:15-26 we have seen three of the five cycles of divine discipline. We looked briefly at Prov.30:11-14 at the four generation curse as the youth become more obstinate toward all forms of authority.
Here we saw the progression of obstinate children who:
(1) curse their parents,v.11 ;
(2) are haughty and arrogant v.12;
(3) think they are better than others as self-righteousness and self-justification sets in v.13;
(4) fill the streets with crime, v.14.
The word obstinate means to be unreasonably fixed in one’s purposes or opinions; unyielding; stubborn, and difficult to overcome or cure. [Funk & Wagnall’s Standard Desk Dictionary]
It is said in Micah, a prophet of the eighth century B.C., that God’s judgment upon the southern kingdom of Judah, that the people of Judah had an incurable wound, Mic.1:9. The incurable wound means her impending judgment from God was irreversible. Assyria, was used by God as a rod of chastisement upon Israel. The Assyrian King Sennacherib would ransack and destroy Samaria and all the cities in the northern kingdom. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon would eventually do the same to Jerusalem and Judah in the southern kingdom.
Judah and Israel had become idolatrous and this scar tissue on their souls led to gross immorality. It is as if they had formed a blind spot on their nation’s conscience of what was right and what was wrong, and they did not recognize their sin any longer. The apostate prophets as noted in Micah 2:6 grew in popularity because they told the backslidden people what they wanted to hear, but the true unpopular prophets called the people to repentance from their sins. Whose message do you think the people wanted to hear?
In their scarred souls they regarded their opinions and fixed set of values above God’s word. On many fronts in our nation we have also formed such a callous opinion.
This is the exact reason so many people disregard God’s word today. They value their opinions higher than God’s word, and sadly the outcome of a people who place their opinions higher than God’s word is that these people are going to fall, individually and collectively as a nation. God will not be mocked but for so long.
Jer.17:21-23,27, 18:6-12, 19:15, 21:5,14, 22:7-9
Obstinacy As A Social Plague
Obstinacy is one of the great social plagues of our society. My thesaurus gives several synonyms of this word obstinate; they are, stubborn, defiant, uncontrollable, and callous.
This insidious behavior must be curbed at all cost especially while rearing our children. However, society and peer pressure so often overwhelms and claims children even from the best of homes. In the first home Adam and Eve raised two of their children, their first children, Cain and Able. Both were taught the same message and observed the same parents, but with two different outcomes in their attitudes toward God. The brothers, Esau and Jacob saw things differently and this choice of heart has continued to this day.
In many Christian homes this defiant attitude remains covert, but at a certain age it seems to grow overnight and all of the sudden what was once hidden comes to light. God have mercy on us as we try to raise our children in an ever increasingly evil society. This attitude lies not only in the youth of today, but also in adults and sadly in many believers. We too find ourselves wanting something we do not need, or find ourselves tempted by sin, and we do not resist. The path of least resistance is often much more inviting than the path of righteousness. One of the definitions for obstinacy is that of persistent bad habits. Believers often have scar tissue on the soul. Heb.3:13 “ But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today, lest any of you be hardened [Aor.Pass. Sub.] (from skleruno, sklhrunw, to become hard or dry or stubborn), through the deceitfulness of sin.”
The significance of the passive voice in the Greek is important here. With the passive voice the subject of the verb receives the action. In this case believers are warned against allowing sin to harden their hearts and conscience.
It is neither our circumstances nor our environment that leads to our obstinate attitudes, it is our free will to allow sinful attitudes and behavior. These bad attitudes create the soul environment wherein we perpetuate unacceptable ungodly behavior. These attitudes are produced by our own actions, not someone else’s. We need to humble ourselves before God.
Deceitfulness is the Greek word, apate, apath. This word can also be defined as deception or delusion. This is what the sin nature does to the thinking of the soul when the believer is not under the controlling ministry of God the Holy Spirit.
We can quickly find justification for what we want to do, but if such sinful habits persist they will create scar tissue and create vacuums into those rebellious areas of the soul.
The doors to those areas of the soul tend to have weak locks on them, and the old sin nature (leaven) has become proficient at convincing the will to unlocking those doors and finding entrance into the heart of the believer. A little unconfessed known sin corrupts the entire soul. These known unconfessed sins lead the soul of the believer to become irritated with the biblical messages from God’s word. Such believers begin slipping in their attendance because the truth hurts.
This sinful area may not be visited often or it may be a persistent problem. It does not matter if it is a mental attitude sin or sin of the tongue or sins of the flesh. It does not matter if the trend is toward lasciviousness or asceticism, that is, self-righteousness or loose living.
Paul told Timothy to flee youthful lust. James said the tongue is a consuming fire that creates a world of destruction, and Jesus Christ said the sins of the flesh start with the sins of the heart. Sin shoots at the believer from all angles.
Saints, if we want the blessings of God in our homes and in our nation we must humble ourselves before God, seek his forgiveness, and return to the old paths of Bible exposition and good old fashioned faithfulness. We must stop being such a whiny Christianity, complaining about every little discomfort and every thing that doesn’t go our way. We need to spend more time being grateful for what we have and all the opportunities God has given us in this great nation.
Why The Obstinacy Continues
Only a repentant heart humbly submitting to God’s word on a consistent daily basis will change those bad attitudes and bad habits. The believer must be willing to be instructed in God’s word. This does not only mean you become knowledgeable about the Bible, but that you let the correction from the Bible do its job as well. Jer.17:23 says a stiff necked people will not hear instruction from God’s word. The writer of Prov.12:1 says the stupid will not receive correction and instruction. Prov.29:1 “ He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.”
This correction is often times not received unless the pastor-teacher exercises his responsibilities of reproving and rebuking and exhorting with all long suffering in doctrine, Heb.4:12; Prov.15:3; II Tim.3:16-17. With the many new church movements today this becomes an even more unlikely hope. The Lord Jesus Christ still commissions pastor-teachers to edify the body of Christ, Eph.4:12-16, and this calling from our Lord upon such men is being curtailed by programs and proud believers who will not submit to some of the most simple commands found in the word of God.
The problem with the Church today is the Church wants to replace all of the elements of the pastor’s job and mold the pastor into some image that is amiable and palatable.
This is what Israel did with her shepherds, and the shepherds who complied with the people led the people astray. Jeremiah speaks of the civil leaders who forsook God’s people, Jer.23:1-2. Ezekiel speaks of the spiritual leaders who forsook the spiritual care of the sheep to tend to their own interest, Ezek.34.
Today these interests are many. They include those pastors who have an overly booked counseling ministry. People today have an innumerable set of problems, and though many are common and do need immediate attention from the pastor such as marriage and family problems. However, there are many problems believers have that the pastor would do well to leave alone. If the pastor stays tied up all week with counseling he will not have time to devote to his studies. He must guard his time to study and rest so he can do his best at feeding the flock when they assemble. Most of the problems believers face can be remedied by a good regimen of Bible doctrine. For the believers who say that is not true you will also see that they are the ones who miss Bible class the most. They simply do not give God’s word a chance or they are still too obstinate to trust God.
But sadly, many believers wait until their lives are so messed up before they approach God’s servant that he would have to be a magician to figure out all of the answers to those problems. Some may attend Church for awhile to get a dose or two of Bible instruction using God as a spare tire, but a dose or two will not change their habits and their hearts, and this is what needs changing.
Some pastors are current events oriented and all they do is preach on the present problems of the day, and though these problems can be addressed from the Bible this does not edify the Church. Some pastors are proficient writers and they run all over the place doing book signings and giving speeches.
Who’s watching the flock? Who’s feeding the flock? Some pastors are so concerned with building a big work that they loose sight of the purpose for their work, and that is to edify the body of Christ. Praise God for those who can balance both.
Some pastors think they are evangelists, which they might be, and these men do not have the heart for nurturing and correcting God’s children.
The best thing they can do for the body of Christ is get out of the pastoral ministry and tend to their calling of full time evangelism.
The callings of an evangelist are difficult and that of a pastor-teacher are also difficult, but their callings are not the same though they serve the same Lord.
If our nation is going to survive for many years to come we as believers must do a better job of handling our own spiritual lives. We must stop making excuses for missing Bible class. We must closely evaluate our habits and see if they are honoring to God. We must support those who labor in the word and in Bible doctrine. We must not go to sleep at the wheel. We must not allow the spiritual darkness around us to get inside our heads and our hearts. We must see Christianity as our life and not as a hobby.